The Wet Season is Here

From around April 15 to Nov 15 is the rainy season here in Costa Rica.

See, Costa Rica's weather is kind of on the backwards side than that of the US. When it is our "summer" it is Costa Rica's "winter" and the US Winter is Costa Rica's Summer.

But here in Costa Rica they really do not call it winter and summer, it is wet season and dry season.

So we are now officially in the wet season and everyday around 2:00 PM the clouds roll in and it starts to rain. And when it rains, boy does it rain. I thought that Texas thunderstorms were bad, but not like here, especially when the thunder and lightning kicks in.

 

 The rain coming down as we are standing in our
car port area. Got your ark ready?

 

When it rains it dumps here

 Now when it starts raining, it gets pretty loud on our metal roof. Our little yourkie Onni, does not like the rain storms at all. The noise on the roof bothers her, but it is the thunder that really freaks here out.

She gets all shakey and starts panting as she stresses out. 

I was reading about something called the "Thunder Jacket" and how it works. It calms the dog down because they are being held really tight by the jacket. 

I have noticed that when it starts to rain, I hold Onni tight and she calms down. 

Now that I know that, I have come up with a thunder jacket of my own... "The Onni Roll"

I have a thin blanket that I roll Onni up like you would a new born baby. She loves it and instantly calms down once she is in it all snug as a bug. 

Onni in her "Onni Roll"

We love hearing the rain on the roof. It is a peaceful sound. We are also glad that it just lasts a few hours a day too. Otherwise we would have to build an ark of our own. 

We Moved In - Our First Weekend in Our New Home

Tracye at our friends house relaxing

We have finally gotten our keys to our house and our car and we are now officially living in our rental home here in Costa Rica.

We have enjoyed getting to know Costa Rica and her little nuances she has to offer.

Friday

We went to the feria (the local farmers market) and picked up some food and then got some essentials at Coopatenas, the local grocery store.

We took all that back to our friends house and then went and picked up the keys to our house and car. Talk about being excited.

We unloaded the cars and have suitcases all over the living room but we got our internet up and running. That should show you our priorities there... grin.

I have been working on some news to send out and I am having a dickens of a time with the Prophezine website. It just does not want to play right. So after a lot of frustration I give up. It is time to shut down and take a shower. What we do not know is that the water company is doing work on the pipes and they turn the water off around 7 - 8 PM at night.

No showers tonight Maynard.

You have got to be kidding. Both of us were looking forward to a nice shower.

Now, they did turn the water back on at 4:30 AM because I had to get up and turn off the running shower after it grumbled and growned then starting running.

Went back to bed and caught more zzzz's.

Saturday

I got up around 7:30 in the morning and started making coffee. Got the water boiled and poured it into my french press.

To my dismay, my french press was damaged in the last leg of the trip. OH NOO... No Coffee.

Thank goodness Tracye had the foresight to get a coffee sock. She likes making coffee in the sock vs the french press.

Whew... a bad day due to no coffee has been averted. Thank you Tracye.

We had a great cup of coffee and I cut up some fresh fruit that we bought at the feria for breakfast.

We sat here in our wonderful kitchen answering emails and listening to the new sounds. There are parrots outside making noise along with other birds. I go to put my bowl in the sink and that is when I notice we have a sugar ant invasion.

These are those microscopic ants that invade by the millions. We were able to catch the invasion at around a couple hundred thousand.

Yes they were all over and would not go away.

That is till I reverted back to my high school chem and biology classes.

See, ants are blind and they are acidic creatures. How they get around is by following the trails of acid laid by the scouts.

So how do you get rid of sugar ants?

You use "AXION... EL VERDADERO ARRANCAGRASA - or in English "The Real Grease Stripper." (Note - to get the full effect, this needs to be said in your best Spanish radio announcer voice and it helps if you speak into an empty metal garbage can... try it, it works.)

Folks, this is some of the best dish washing soap on the planet. What is great is that it even works in cold water. Which is what most kitchen sinks have here in Costa Rica, luke warm coldish water. Hot water is not very common in most kitchens except for US American homes who have installed a hot water heater.

See some of the main ingredients in this soap is magnesium and sodium. For those of you who took chemistry in school, you know these as "base metals" and react harshly to "acids."

Want to get rid of ants which are acidic in nature? Use something that kills the acid, which is AXION!

We have not had the ants return yet and it has been two days.

Saturday afternoon was pretty uneventful.

Well not quite.

We went for an early dinner at the worlds best pizza parlor, Ristorante Pizzeria Alida.

Folks, I am a huge pizza snob. I used to help manage a pizza parlor in the SF bay area that constantly won best pizza in all of the San Fransisco Bay Area. For those of you who may be wondering, the place was called Fargo's Pizza and it was located in Mountain View, CA.

Well, Alida's pizza is to die for. They make everything from scratch. Alida tosses the dough and gets it so paper thin that you can almost see through it.

She then lays down just a little of their sauce and then piles the ingredients on. My mouth is watering just thinking of it.

This is the best pizza I have had in a very long time. PROMISE - if you come down for a visit, we will take you to Alida's. You will love it too.

Sunday

We got the chance to go to church here in Atenas. Once a month they have an English / Spanish sermon and it was nice meeting a lot of the expats.

It was neat being in church here. Many of the songs we knew already, but were in Spanish. So you could sing along in English if you know all the words.

What is great is that you see the love of the Lord and you know that you are brothers and sisters in the Lord. Even though there are language barriers, the holy spirit is there and the body is one.

So we sat and we enjoyed our first church service here in Costa Rica and then later went out to Don YaYo's for some lunch.

Tracye had the taco plate and I had the typical blue plate special AKA Casado which means "married" in Spanish. This is a typical dish that every restaurant has. It usually has some sort of pork or chicken, with rice, beans, salad, fried plantains, a potato hash, and maybe another spoonful of something.

It is called Casado because the wives in the morning would fix a meal that would last their men during a hard days work. Every restaurant has their own spin on the meal and Don Yayo's is famous for their Chicharona's. Chicharona is fried pork belly with a little fat. The same area that bacon is made from, but with more meat. It was pretty good. Again, forgot to take pictures of the food. We need to do that so that folks can see what they are missing.

We then came home and have been hanging out on the interent. I was chatting with PZ Insider Kaye and her husband. They are the first PZ Folks to come down and visit us. Looks like they will be moving down as well.
It is now 4:40 Sunday afternoon.

Our first weekend in our new home has been a blessing. There is a lot we still have to learn, but we take the road bumps on at a time and even though they might be a hassle, it is nice knowing that we are where the Lord has led us. We are living a simple life. The moment we stepped off the plane and got in the van with our driver Alex, we felt what we have been calling the "foreboding feeling" just melt away.

Pura Vida! - To the good life.